


La Belle Dame

by Teegar



Series: Short Stories Featuring Ensign Chekov [2]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Age Difference, Minor Character Death, Vampires, sex (indicated but not described), written as TOS but can be read as AOS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 11:53:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17487575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teegar/pseuds/Teegar
Summary: While on shore leave in a city that has been experiencing an unexplained string of murders, Chekov finds himself powerfully drawn to a mysterious woman who claims to know him from another life.





	La Belle Dame

**Author's Note:**

> I'm an "old school" fan artist/writer who's trying to salvage as many of my stories and drawings as I can from disappearing down the memory holes of the internet.
> 
> "La Dame" is my vampire story. I started writing it in around 1992. This was before "Twilight" or "Buffy" or even before I'd read much Anne Rice. I say this not in a "Oooo, I'm soooo unique! I didn't copy anything from anybody!" sort of way, but rather to stand back and marvel at what turned out to be my un-unique-ness. From the vantage of thirty odd years later, it is very clear that a lot of writers and readers around my age were very ready to pick apart the vampire mythos we'd been taught by folklore, books, and Hollywood in rather radical ways.
> 
> It's not that surprising, really, though. Aside from any cultural zeitgeist of our shared times, people around my age do share a certain experience with vampires that may differentiate us from previous generations who associated these creatures of the night primarily as powerful symbols of sex, blood, and gory death. In the late 1960's and early '70's, following the commercial success of TV shows such as "The Addams Family," "The Munsters," and "Dark Shadows," advertising executives launched the "groovy ghoolies" pop culture craze. Vampires, along with werewolves and Frankenstein's monster, became standard elements of children's programming. Vampires were in our joke books and on our valentines. They taught us dental hygiene and how to count. We ate their cereal every morning.
> 
> Is it any wonder that as we grew up we wrote very different sort of vampire stories? Stories that weren't afraid to re-write everything about them? Stories where instead of shunning them like we were supposed to, we kind of loved them sometimes?

*******

****

La Belle Dame

_I met a lady in the meads,_  
_Full beautiful--a faery's child,_  
_Her hair was long, her foot was light,_  
_And her eyes were wild._  
\-- John Keats, "La Belle Dame Sans Merci"

"Would you please stop staring at her?"

Chekov didn't take his eyes off the woman sitting across the bar from the group of _Enterprise_ junior officers. "I am not staring. Why do you keep saying that?"

Ensign Kristine Yakamoto gave an exasperated sigh. "Look, Pavel, I don't know what that particular combination of sounds means in Russian, but in Standard to stare is to gaze fixedly and intently -- which is exactly what you are doing right now... And you're being pretty obvious about it."

Chekov was surprised at the amount of effort it took to force his eyes back down to the drink in front of him. "I just happened to be momentarily looking in that general direction," he defended himself nonetheless.

"Oh, leave the man alone, Krissie," Tim Dolin said, giving Chekov a fraternal thump on the back that nearly knocked the ensign's vodka from his grasp. "He's not breaking any laws."

"Yeah, Kris," Ens. Todd LaSala agreed. "Lighten up already. We're on shore leave."

Unbeknownst to the navigator, his two seeming defenders were actually having a great deal of fun timing the increasingly short intervals Chekov could manage to keep his attention away the mysterious woman in the corner of the bar.

"Hey, Siskow," Dolin prodded the red-clad officer to his right, who looked as though he was about to fall into his drink. "Tell us about how you won that last match in the racquetball tournament."

"Okay... okay... okay..." Despite that fact that the five were only a bare half an hour into their leave, Ensign Ryan Siskow of Security was already so drunk he was no longer aware that he was being used as a decoy. "Okay... So I... Racquetball, yeah... Okay, so I was... Yeah, racquetball... Okay... So I... I think I might have told you guys this before, but uh... Okay, so I was..."

Chekov wasn't listening to his fellow ensign. He was drowning in the thought of red-gold hair and red, red lips. Although she was beautiful, it wasn't the way the woman looked that drew him to her. They'd made eye contact only briefly as he entered, but from that moment, her presence began to fill the room. The indefinable aura emanated from her had already crowded out all other details of the bar. It was in the process of erasing the presence of his friends. Even the drink in his hand as he stared at it seemed insubstantial compared to the intoxicatingly rich and palpable presence of this woman that he had never so much as spoken to.

It didn't make any sense. This powerful, instantaneous attraction was unlike anything he'd ever felt. 

`Perhaps I've met her before,' he thought, as his eyes followed his thoughts inexorably back to that corner of the bar.

He became peripherally aware of people laughing.

"That's got to be a record," LaSala was giggling.

"Yes, my friends," Dolin announced, consulting the wall chronometer. "47 seconds -- a full five seconds off the previous mark set a good fifteen minutes ago."

"This is embarrassing." Yakamoto crossed her arms and turned away from the table. "I am not with you guys."

"Oh, come on, Krissie," LaSala said. "Relax."

"Krissie's just scared she's going to get eaten up by the vampire," Dolin said, putting on a fake Transylvannian accent.

"It's not funny, guys," Yakamoto crossed her arms. "And I think it's a really terrible thing to do to a person -- give us three days leave and then say, 'Oh, yes, there is this bizarre serial killer on the loose on the base.'"

"So far the only deaths have been transients..." Dolin began.

"And what are we? Permanent residents?"

"Well, if the vampire gets you," LaSala trying out his Count Dracula imitation too, "you may be here a looong time."

"It's not funny," Yakamoto insisted.

"... who were out after dark by themselves," Dolin finally had the chance to finish. "So if you don't get mad and go off without us miserable cretins, lechers, and slobs, you'll be okay."

Yakamoto rolled her eyes.

"Besides," LaSala said, patting Siskow on the back, "we've got Security's finest right here with us."

"Huh?" The redshirt roused. "Okay, okay... Let me see, what was I saying?"

"Vampires are a Russian thing, aren't they, Pavel?" LaSala asked, nudging his companion.

"Eastern European," the navigator answered absently, propping his chin against his hand.

"What?"

"The popular form of the Western vampire myth had its origins in Eastern European history and folklore," he replied without bothering to look at his companions. "Although almost every culture on Old Earth has legends of vampiric creatures of some form."

"Wow," LaSala said. "D'ja hear that, Timmy? And that's with one lobe of his brain tied behind his back."

"No, Toddy," Dolin shook his head. "Nothing's tying up that brain. That's not the organ the boy's thinking with right now."

"You guys are disgusting," Yakamoto concluded.

"Excuse me," Chekov said, as the waiter put a drink down in front of him. "I didn't order this."

The grey-skinned server flicked a long, bony finger towards the other side of the bar. "Compliments of the lady."

"He shoots, he scores!" Dolin and LaSala cheered, giving each other high fives over the ensign's head.

"If you gentlemen will excuse me," the Russian said, ducking out from between them.

"Where are you going?" Yakamoto asked anxiously.

Her companions whooped with laughter.

Dolin made a whistling noise as he held an imaginary medical scanner to Yakamoto's forehead. "Captain, I don't seem to read any brain activity."

"That's got my vote for dumb question of the year, Krissie," LaSala said, giggling so hard he had to wipe tears from his eyes. "Right after, 'And I wonder what this end of the mzatha-worm does?'"

"We're supposed to stay together, Pavel," Yakamoto warned, ignoring her companions who were now fully occupied with laughing at their own cleverness.

"I'll be back momentarily," Chekov promised, without having the slightest intention of doing so.

"Be careful," she cautioned him in a tone that let him know that if she had so much as an inch of rank over him she would have ordered him to stay.

Yakamoto and the others blurred into so much inconsequential background noise as the ensign walked across the bar.

The woman was sipping a glass of red liquid. She wasn't looking up, but Chekov somehow knew that she was aware of his approach. He tried to think of something devastatingly charming to say.

"Hello," he said instead.

She looked up. Although she didn't put a lot of effort into making her lips turn the right way, he could tell her mind was smiling. "Hello."

"I wanted to thank you," he said, indicating the drink.

She let her fingertips point at the empty seat across from her. "It's very sad to drink alone."

"Yes." She was so beautiful it was hard to think. The ensign wracked his brains trying to come up with something that wouldn't sound like a tired pickup line.

She leaned her cheek against her hand. "You're from Earth, aren't you?"

"Yes. How did you know?"

"Earth people always have a certain..." As she searched for the appropriate word, the tip of her tongue lightly touched her lip. "...essence about them. You're Slavic. Czechoslovakian?"

"Russian."

"Hmmm." This didn't seem to please her. "What is your name?"

"Pavel Chekov."

"Oh, Chekov," she said, repeating the name as if that made a significant difference. "That means son of the Czech, you know. So perhaps there is a little Czechoslovakian blood, hmm?"

"Do you speak Russian?"

"No, I'm familiar with the name because there was a playwright who shared it with you. Doubtless you know that."

"Yes. Are you Czech?" he asked, despite her unfamiliar accent.

"No." She smiled. "I'm not Human. I've only visited your planet... a long time ago."

Chekov was beginning to feel a little frustrated by the fact that although his answers to almost all her questions thus far had been "yes," all her answers to him had been "no."

"You're an officer from the starship in orbit who's here on leave," she divined while he was trying to think of a question she'd have to answer affirmatively.

He sighed. "Yes."

"Not much of place to spend a leave, is it?"

Miratha, the sea-side town where the base was located, was actually a resort spot famous in this part of the galaxy for its beauty -- during the sunny season, that is. The Nindos III's slowly tilting orbit had plunged this part of the planet into a three year period of murky twilight, turning its fabled iridescent sea an ugly black and grey.

"I suppose you and your friends will take the shuttle to Siensta tomorrow?"

Like Miratha, Siensta, the other major city on the planet was completely enclosed in an environmental bubble that made it habitable for humanoids. Unlike Miratha, it was not particularly scenic even during the sunny season, nor was it very well set up for tourists. It was, however, not dark and not currently prowled by a serial killer.

Chekov smiled and shrugged. "I haven't decided."

She looked down at her drink. "Will you stay here tonight?"

Although she was not looking at him, he could feel that all her concentration was focused on this question and his answer. He felt a tremendous urge to say yes mounting within him that somehow did not come from within him.

"No," he said abruptly, not quite knowing why he did so. "I mean, I still have a few obligations aboard my ship to attend to."

She looked at him and truly smiled for the first time. "You're a skeptic, aren't you?"

"What makes you say that?" he said, refusing to acknowledge the unspoken portion of their conversation.

She laughed. "You aren't entirely taken in by my charm."

Although this was true in a literal sense, it didn't seem like a very gentlemanly thing to agree to. "I do find you to be very charming."

Again she laughed as if they were playing an amusing game and he had managed to score another point against the odds.

"As well you should," she said, rising.

"You are leaving?" he asked, getting to his feet as well. "I could escort you..."

"No, that's not necessary." When she stood he could see she was wearing a long green dress made of a material that looked like velvet. "I live in one of the apartments upstairs."

Faced with the prospect of losing her, the ensign began to reconsider whatever misgivings had made him refuse her. "I..."

She put a finger over his lips to silence him. "Don't worry. We'll meet again."

 

*****

"Sounds like a prostitute to me," Sulu said, correcting the ship's orbit around Nindos.

"She wasn't a prostitute," Chekov insisted, although this was seeming like more and more of a logical possibility as time since their encounter passed. He and the helmsman were finishing up their last hours of duty before they were both officially on leave.

"Are you sure?" the lieutenant asked mildly enough to avoid offence. "I mean, she was sitting alone in a bar waiting..."

"She lived upstairs." As soon as the words left the ensign's mouth, he knew this weakened rather than strengthened his case. "It wasn't that sort of place."

Sulu smiled as if he knew this wasn't true. "Really?"

"All right," the navigator admitted. "It was that sort of place, but she wasn't that sort of person."

"Mmm-hmm." The helmsman checked his instruments. "And you know this from talking to her for how long?"

Chekov sighed and rolled his eyes, knowing where this line of questioning was leading. "Five minutes."

"And other than the fact the she's visited Earth, she told you what about herself?"

"Nothing," the ensign conceded.

Sulu was friend and gentleman enough not to press the point further.

"I don't know." The ensign rested his elbows against his nearly dormant board and propped his chin against his hands. Even such a few hours later it seemed not quite credible that he could have found the woman as powerfully attractive as he remembered. "She was very beautiful."

"It's that pheromone perfume," Sulu said. "It'll make you do crazy things."

"But I didn't," Chekov pointed out. That was the thing that kept him from fully accepting the lieutenant's theory about the woman. If she had been a prostitute using some chemical to entice him, why hadn't she gone through with it? Why hadn't he?

"And you don't want to," Sulu replied, missing the significance. "That's why you should go to Siensta with me."

"And do what? There's nothing there."

"We could go hiking, camping maybe."

"Camping," Chekov repeated the word as if it were the name of a dreaded disease. 

Sulu shook his head patiently. "Just because you got stranded with that landing party on Signa V for a few days and had to eat indigenous..."

"Roaches," Chekov stressed. "We had nothing to eat but roaches."

Sulu shrugged. "You can't avoid the great outdoors forever."

The ensign snorted. "I can try."

"Oh, no. Oh, my God...!"

This quiet exclamation came from the Communications Console. Manning it was Ensign Stephanie Shalofsky. Uhura had long since left for the planet. Shalofsky's features had gone pale when she turned to them.

"Ryan Siskow's dead," she announced. "Someone slit his throat."

*****  


After having waited for more than four hours in the lobby of a Minrathan police station with a wide selection of others who had seen Ensign Siskow during his last few hours, the gravity of the situation had started to escape Chekov and he began to resent the amount of time this was taking from his leave.

Todd LaSala was going to sleep sitting up in one of the row of hard plastic chairs facing him. As had happened several times before, when LaSala's head finally dropped completely forward the jolt roused him. "Are we there yet?" he mumbled.

Tim Dolin was sitting beside him making tiny paper sculptures out of the hard copies of a composite picture of the suspected killer. "Not yet, Toddy."

"I wonder what's taking so long?" Kristine Yakamoto asked, despite that she alone in the group had the foresight to bring along a tricorder so that she was able to review some data while she waited.

Chekov, who was sitting beside Yakamoto, opened his mouth to answer but was beat to the punch by a native woman who had also been in the bar last night.

"I think they're still questioning one of their prime suspects," the native lady whispered. "They've had her in there since..."

A chime sounded from over the public address system on the ceiling over them. "Witnesses to case number AFS1357892 are reminded not to discuss details of the case," a computerized voice scolded in mild, musical tones.

Chekov rubbed his eyes wearily. Conversation might have helped to pass the time, but it didn't seem like any of them could sustain an exchange for more than a few seconds without triggering the warning announcement.

He almost wished they were downstairs in the main reception area. At least there would be the occasional excitement of the coming and goings of criminals to break the tedium. This waiting room to the interrogation suites was more like a shuttle port lobby than a police station -- rows of facing chairs filled with people waiting quietly, only the sounds of computers, muffled announcements and conversations breaking the silence.

He hadn't even considered the probability that she might be there -- the mysterious woman from the night before -- until she was escorted out by a police officer.

"Please don't leave..." the officer was saying. He caught himself and cleared his throat. "Uhm... don't leave the city for the next forty-eight hours. We may have additional questions."

"No doubt." The woman smiled. Her eyes automatically went to Chekov as if the ensign were the only other person in the room.

Chekov rose and moved toward her without being aware that he was doing so.

"Pavel," Yakamoto warned, unheard and unheeded.

The woman held out her hands and the ensign clasped them as if they were long-time acquaintances greeting each other after a prolonged absence.

She looked older in this light and terribly, terribly pale. Perhaps this was only because she was wearing black instead of the warmer green of the night before. Her beautiful red hair was tucked inside a fancy hat with a veil. Her hands were cold to his touch. However, none of this spoiled the absolute, unreasoning joy he felt at being with her.

"My dear," she murmured fondly as he impulsively kissed her cool hands. "I had hoped to see you."

"Yes, I..." Chekov realized mid-utterance that he had not yet thought of anything to say. "I... I wish it could be under better circumstances."

"Yes," she replied, but there wasn't the slightest note of even the most perfunctory concern over Siskow's horrible demise in her voice.

Chekov supposed it was because she didn't know him. These gruesome murders had perhaps become an everyday thing for the inhabitants of the city.

She leaned forward. "Can you walk me home?" she whispered, her lips brushing against his ear.

"Ye... No," It almost killed Chekov to have to say it. "I'm afraid not. I must stay here until I've been questioned. And besides, we're now restricted to certain parts of the city -- not allowed to travel alone."

"I understand." She reached out and stroked his cheek as if comforting a child. "Do you know Place de la Chatres?"

He flipped through his mental map of the city. "I can find it."

"I often take a walk there in the afternoon," she said. "There wouldn't be any harm if we were both there at the same time, would there?"

"Yes," he said, glad to be able to say the word to her. "Yes."

She touched his face again in the place of saying goodbye. It felt very natural... as if they'd been lovers a long time... as if she always said her farewells to him that way.

After she left, Chekov became gradually and unpleasantly aware that a large number of people in the lobby were staring at him. He cleared his throat at them reprovingly, straightened his tunic and headed back for his seat. He anticipated but did not acknowledge Yakamoto's disapproving look. However he did not expect the hand that stopped him.

"You'd better be careful, young man," the elderly lady who'd touched his knee said, "I've heard that she's...."

"Witnesses to case number AFS1357892 are reminded not to discuss details of the case," the computerized voice warned.  


*****

"What kind of music do they play at Russian funerals?" Tim Dolin asked.

"What?" Chekov replied distractedly as he peered into the murky darkness beyond the lights of the park. It was still technically afternoon, but on Miratha, afternoon was hard to distinguish from midnight without a watch.

"Probably sad Russian music," Todd LaSala concluded.

"Sad Russian music," Dolin repeated. "That's kind of redundant, isn't it?"

Chekov would have much preferred to have been alone. He had a strong suspicion that he was about to make a fool of himself over this woman and he did not particularly wish to have an audience for that. Dolin and LaSala were, however, willing to sit with him on the park bench and wait to see if he was going to get stood up while they mournfully stared at all the seaside bars they were now forbidden from visiting.

The navigator looked from LaSala on his left to Dolin on his right. "Why are you talking about funerals?"

"Because you're dead," Dolin explained, then held up a finger. "Number one: you go away with this woman and either she's the vampire and she kills you, or, number two: she's not the vampire and the vampire kills you, or number three: Kirk kills you when you get back."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Oh, that's romantic, isn't it, Toddy?" Dolin leaned back so he could consult his partner. "He doesn't realize yet that he's about to disobey orders. You'd better break it to him."

"I said I'm not going," Chekov insisted.

"Pavel." LaSala put his arm around him. "Your lips say _'nyet, nyet, nyet'_ but another part of your body is going to say, _'da, da, da_.'"

Chekov shrugged him off. "I couldn't possibly."

"He's going to do it."

"Yep."

"And he's going to turn to us and say, 'Could you comrades cover for me while I go make beautiful balalaika music with this woman who's old enough to be my mother?'"

"She's not so old." Chekov said, despite the fact that his mother was in her early fifties and it didn't seem at all inaccurate to judge that his mystery woman was in her middle to late forties.

"I'd go with her," LaSala agreed.

"Todd, you'd date my grandmother."

"Tim, your grandmother is a fine woman, and I don't want you to talk that way about her or the very special relationship we've been having behind your back for several years now."

"And when he asks us for to cover for him,” Dolin continued, unfazed. “-- And he will."

"He doesn't know it yet," LaSala chimed in.

"But he will," Dolin repeated with emphasis. "We're going to say no."

"Oh, I thought we were going to say yes because we're such nice, resourceful guys and such suckers for romance?"

"We are, we are. But if he gets killed -- and it looks like he's going to -- we have to sit in the police station for another seven hours."

"Oh." LaSala turned to Chekov. "Sorry, _tovarich_. You're on your own."

Chekov rose as single car transport approached. He knew even before the door rolled back that it would be her.

"I'm sorry to keep you waiting, Pasha," she called, leaning forward in the shuttle seat. "But you see I've decided to move from my current lodgings to the Zaldchi Hotel..."

The ensign mentally heaved a huge sigh of relief. The Zaldchi was well within the area in which _Enterprise_ personnel were allowed to frequent.

"My old neighborhood was becoming quite unsavory," the woman was saying. "All those killings... All those boorish policemen..."

There was still, Chekov realized, the sticky question of a chaperon. Their orders stipulated that personnel on leave remain in groups of at least three at all times. With the way he was feeling right now, that could prove quite inconvenient.

"The Zaldchi is much more particular in terms of security than my former residence," the woman said. "Only residents and their guests are allowed."

Behind Chekov, LaSala cleared his throat quietly. "Timmy, I think this is beginning to sound like a plan."

"Toddy, I think you're right," his partner agreed. "Ma'am," Dolin said politely, stepping forward, "I don't know if you're aware of this, but our Pavel here isn't allowed to go anywhere by himself what with all the killers, policemen, and other undesirables hanging around making life hard for poor servicemen like ourselves."

"Of course I'd like to have you all as my guests," the woman said graciously. "Perhaps you'd like to have a drink? I understand the hotel has an excellent bar."

"An excellent bar, you say?" LaSala said, nudging Chekov aside.

"And a rather exclusive clientele," the woman replied, not seeming to mind.

"Exclusively what?"

"Well, I'm afraid I can't say exclusively female," the woman replied, gesturing them inside the transport. "But I think I can say of the ladies that they are predominantly young, predominantly pretty, and predominantly rich."

"This is definitely a plan, Timmy," LaSala said, eagerly stepping inside the transport.

"A good plan, Toddy," Dolin agreed, sliding in beside him.

"Well, c'mon, Chekov," LaSala urged. "What are you waiting for?"

"He's waiting for my invitation," the woman said, holding out her slim, white hand. "Will you come?"

Chekov took her hand, somehow feeling that in doing so his fate was sealed.

*****

_I made a garland for her head_  
_And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;_  
_She look'd at me as she did love,_  
_And made sweet moan._

 

Chekov lay back in the satiny sheets and sighed guiltily. "I don't usually do this sort of thing."

The woman in his arms laughed. "You always say that. I never quite know it's truly you until you say that."

Chekov frowned. "What?"

"Never mind." She propped herself up on one elbow. Locks of her long, red hair fell onto the bare skin of his stomach. "And what do you mean, 'do this sort of thing'? What sort of thing?"

He had to smile as he traced the line of her ruby lips. "I don't even know your name."

"Yes, you do," she said, kissing his fingers.

"No, I don't."

She ran her tongue down the line of his index finger to the  
palm of his hand. "Of course you do."

"No," Chekov insisted. "I truly do not."

She closed her teeth playfully on the fleshy part of the base of his thumb. "You're so stubborn," she scolded. "Guess. Just try to guess my name."

Chekov sighed. This wasn't making him feel any less embarrassed about having gone to bed with a near to total stranger. He looked about the hotel room at her half-unpacked possessions for a clue. 

"Madeleine," he chose at last.

She smiled and kissed the pulse point on his wrist.

"I am correct?" he asked, surprised.

"Of course," she said as if any other outcome would have been unnatural.

"It's embroidered on that handkerchief," he admitted, reclaiming his arm to point out his source.

She gently pulled it back. "That could have been the name of my dressmaker."

"It _could_ have been," he agreed pointedly.

"But it's not," she said, as if that proved something.

"Madeleine," he said looking into her clear green eyes and hearing the echo of himself say that name to this woman a thousand times before. "How do I know you?"

"That's not so important..." She turned his hand over and kissed his palm before laying it over her breast. "...as it is that you know me now."

Her skin was like living satin, incredibly smooth to the touch. 

"Know me," she said urgently. "With all your soul, Pavel Andreivich. Know me." 

*****

"Hey, Chekov!" 

The ensign paused before what he assumed was an empty officer's lounge on the _Enterprise_ and looked to see who'd called his name. "Sulu, what are you doing here?"

Sulu grinned ruefully at his foot which was propped on chair and encased in a walking cast. "Took a little fall."

"A sprain?" Chekov speculated as he walked over to take a look.

"Broken, actually," the lieutenant admitted.

"Ah." The ensign smiled. "The great outdoors."

Sulu took the jibe good-humoredly. "And what are you doing here?"

"I... uhm..." The item Chekov had come aboard to retrieve was in his hand which was currently folded behind his back. He decided to leave it there. "I came to get something."

"A paperweight?" Sulu asked, displaying the sort of powers of observation and alertness to detail that Star Fleet finds so admirable in their officers.

Seeing he was caught, Chekov put the item on the table. It was made of black glass and painted with a small colorful scene of a man in traditional Russian garb and a deer.

The lieutenant picked it up and turned it over in his hand. "Didn't your mother give you this?"

"Yes," Chekov admitted. "But it is too fragile to use... even if I did have paper."

"So you're pawning it?" Sulu asked, weighing it in his hand with a professional air.

"No." Chekov retrieved the item a little indignantly. "I am going to give it to someone."

"Oh," the helmsman grinned delightedly. "So you've met a girl?"

"Yes," Chekov confirmed defensively.

Sulu's face fell. "Oh, Chekov. Not the prostitute."

"She is not a prostitute," the ensign rebutted firmly.

"Oh," his friend replied, looking no more convinced than he had been the other day. "So I guess you know her name now?"

"Yes," Chekov replied with dignity. "Madeleine."

The helmsman remained silent.

"All right, no last name," the ensign relented after a moment. "But not everyone uses a last name."

The lieutenant made no comment on this. "Well, I guess it's pretty frustrating to have to have all your dates chaperoned."

Chekov hesitated a fatal half-second too long before replying, "Yes."

He could see superior officer radar going off all over the lieutenant's face. "Chekov, you aren't sneaking off to see her alone, are you?"

"Oh, no," the ensign assured him, smiling to make it more convincing -- and forgetting how well the helmsman knew that he tended to smile when he was being less than completely truthful.

The lieutenant said nothing, but gave him one of his we-may-be-friends-but-I-still-outrank-you looks and gestured at the chair opposite him.

Chekov took it reluctantly. "We've been meeting at a hotel," he admitted, then quickly added, "One that is well within the area permissible for travel. There is a cafe in the lobby. Ensigns Dolin and LaSala have been accompanying me..."

"Dolin and LaSala?" Sulu grimaced. "You must be desperate."

Chekov didn't bother to deny this. "They remain in the cafe..."

"...While you and Madeleine go up to her room," Sulu finished.

Chekov confirmed his assumption with a go-ahead-and-shoot-me-if-you're-going-to shrug.

Sulu considered the information with judicial seriousness. "Well, that's very close to obeying the orders. Very close. Probably close enough if nothing happens."

Chekov nodded. "But if something does happen..."

"You're toast."

"I know." The ensign sighed and gave his friend a so-are-you-going-to-tell-on-me-now-or-what look.

"Pavel," Sulu said seriously. "I think you need to ask yourself a question -- Is this woman really worth it?"

"Sulu..." The ensign gave a little laugh as he rose. "I think that is one of the only questions about her that I do have an answer for."

*****

__

_I set her on my pacing steed,_  
_And nothing else saw all day long,_  
_For sidelong would she bend, and sing_  
_A faery's song._

A pale blue pulse throbbed so gently in Madelaine's throat as she slept that it almost seemed as if it too was afraid of disturbing her. She seemed so terribly tired today. Chekov lay beside her, his head propped on his elbow. 

What kind of alien was she? She seemed so very human -- especially now as she lay frail and exhausted beneath her embroidered satin sheets. Other times, though, Madeleine displayed a strength both mental and physical that was quite unearthly.

Chekov picked a heavy auburn curl up off the pillow. He supposed it would be rather rude to take a tricorder reading of the woman one loved.

Loved? Did he love Madeleine? He hadn't experienced such a sudden and violently intense physical attraction since he was a teenager -- which admittedly wasn't that long ago. Perhaps that was all this affair was -- just another sign of how far he had yet to go in learning to be the master of his emotions. Perhaps someday, he'd learn to be cool and analytical in such matters.

Not today, though, he knew as he kissed the lock of Madeleine's hair.

Her green eyes fluttered open. "You're leaving?" she asked, once more accurately reading his thoughts before they were fully formed in his own mind.

"Yes." He couldn't resist kissing those ruby lips again, though. "You're tired. You should rest. I should go..."

"And spend time with your shipmates so they won't wonder where you are," Madeleine finished for him.

Since this was the truth, Chekov could do nothing other than smile and shrug apologetically.

"For someone who is not naturally deceitful," she said, putting her arms around his neck, "you have taken to subterfuge with an ease that is positively frightening."

"Frightening?" Chekov repeated, taking her into his arms.

"Yes," she said, kissing him. "I fear that I'm corrupting you."

Chekov smiled and made no reply, but her statement was close enough to the truth to strengthen his resolve to make this kiss the last for today.

Madeleine didn't attempt to stop him as he got out of her bed. She stretched lazily as he slipped into the dark paisley-patterned dressing robe she'd given him.

He stepped over to the porcelain basin to wash his face. Madeleine's apartment was filled with such things. She was a dealer in antiques. At first he'd been hesitant to use such obviously rare and valuable items as if they were everyday appliances. Now, though, he didn't even pause to consider how many years he'd have to work to repay her if he were to accidentally knock this piece off its equally valuable stand.

The little round mirror above the basin had a green cast. In it he could see that Madeleine was watching him. She was always watching him. Her eyes never seemed to leave him when she was awake.

He smiled and shook a scolding finger at her reflection. "You will make me self-conscious."

"I can't help it," she replied, then held her arms out for him.

She was as irresistible as gravity. He lay down beside her once more, surrendering to her embrace. It was increasingly difficult to leave her even for a short amount of time. The thought that his stay on this planet would be over in a few days was becoming unendurable.

"You're so young," she said, smoothing his hair as he kissed her shoulders, "and beautiful."

"I'm not so young."

Madeleine laughed. "Oh, so you don't deny being beautiful, though?"

"You," Chekov replied, kissing her throat, "are beautiful."

"You're kind to say so, but we're not as well matched this time as we have been before... Although I can't really object in this case. Grigor was of an age that matched my appearance, but he was not a handsome man." 

Chekov didn't like it when she began to talk strangely. He had learned to endure such comments in silence, though, since if he questioned her, her answers confused more than they satisfied.

Madeleine laughed softly to herself, still caught up in her memory. "To be honest, Grigor was hideously ugly. He had an enormous hooked nose -- which was not at all fashionable at that time -- and a long, sallow face. He did have kind eyes, though." She lifted Chekov's chin. "Like you do. There's really quite a bit of Grigor about you in some ways. Are you Jewish again, darling?"

The ensign pulled slightly backwards. "What?"

"Yes," she said examining him critically. "There's a certain lilt to the voice, a certain tilt to the eyes...."

"My mother's family is Jewish," he said to stop her.

She tilted her head curiously. "I've upset you. Strange. I didn't think people cared about such things anymore."

He smiled an unamused smile and turned away. "Neither did I."

She didn't allow him to get far. She caught him by the shoulders -- casually, gently, but with a firmness that demonstrated that her strength more than doubled his. "You're upset," she observed again. "To you what I said made me sound racist, anti-Semitic."

"No." He tried to shrug out of her grip. "It doesn't matter."

"Oh, yes it does," she said gravely, refusing to let him turn away from her. "It matters a great deal. You see, I know the dangers of racism... particularly anti-Semitism." An endless sorrow entered her voice. "That's how I lost Grigor."

"He died?" Chekov asked, drawn in despite himself.

"Yes," she replied. "Hate killed him. Hate and Hitler."

"Hitler?" Chekov repeated, sure he'd misheard.

Madeleine let go of his shoulders and smoothed the fabric of the robe he was wearing tenderly. "Not Hitler personally, of course. A soldier shot him in the street in front of our apartments. I was asleep when it happened. I never found out exactly what took place. Perhaps the soldier was trying to arrest him. You see, Grigor refused to participate in the Nazi's racism. He was contemptuous of the laws they established to humiliate his people. 'My face is my gold star,' he would say. Of course he was right. The Germans couldn't see beyond that face... that ugly, beautiful face."

As he watched her brush a tear from her eye, it occurred to Chekov marginally that the robe very likely had belonged to Madeleine's dead lover.

"I warned him," she was saying, "but he wouldn't leave Prague. Not even when I begged him. He was logical, practical, so civilized he couldn't believe the barbarism of the Nazis could touch him."

"The Nazis..." Chekov began slowly. "That was several hundred years ago."

Madeleine smiled through her tears. "I did say I was older than you."

Chekov shook his head against such illogic. "Aliens didn't visit Earth at that time."

"Oh I know." Madeleine rubbed her eyes and stretched, making a determined effort to put her memories behind her. "It was a dreadful backwater. Imagine how hard it would be to leave if you were stranded there."

Chekov was momentarily struck mute with disbelief. He stared at her, silently evaluating the possibility that he was having an affair with someone who was certifiably insane.

As if she caught these thoughts, Madeleine turned back to him. "I've upset you... again," she said with a gentleness that bordered on being patronizing.

"No," he replied quickly, "no."

"Yes," she contradicted firmly, then rolled over so she could lay back among her satin pillows. "I am tired. I'm saying too much too soon."

"I don't understand some of the things you say," Chekov began carefully.

Madeleine gave a half-laugh. "Yes, you do. You understand. You don't accept... Yet."

Chekov had an uneasy suspicion that this was true. Despite the fact that much of what Madeleine said should be dismissed as whimsy or delusion, he could feel himself being inexorably drawn into her peculiar brand of madness.

Madeleine reached out a languid white hand to smooth away his frown. "Don't fret so," she said mildly. "Go to your friends. I will be here when you come back."

Chekov knew both of these statements to be true. He would come back and she would be here. Beyond his powers of logical analysis, he also knew that coming back to her was something he'd been doing for a long, long time.

*****

"Well, I wish he'd get his girlfriend to kill someone closer to here."

Chekov turned on his companions coldly. "What did you say?"

"Ooops," LaSala said from behind his drink. "He was listening. And even I found that one offensive on multiple levels, Timmy."

"I said that someone had been killed closer to here than I'd like to see -- for your girlfriend's sake," Dolin revised, turning the newsviewer mounted to the side of their table in the navigator's direction. "Did you see that?"

Chekov frowned as he read the report, but made no comment on Dolin's original statement which he couldn't be completely sure had understood perfectly. He had found it was easier in the long run to tune out or ignore the pair's inane chatter. He wished for the thousandth time that he had chosen more palatable companions to accompany him on his rendezvous at the Zaldachi hotel. "This murder occurred on the other side of the city."

"Yeah, but it's our same killer."

The Russian shook his head as he scanned the item. A vagrant had been found in an alley. The report indicated there had been wounds to the victim's throat and extreme loss of blood. "It doesn't say that."

"It's not going to." Dolin replied. "This is a tourist town. You think headlines of "Killer Vampire Strikes Again" are going to be good for business?"

"Business is dead already," LaSala moaned, looking around the half-empty hotel bar.

"I keep telling you, Todd." Dolin picked up his drink. "It's not the dead we need to worry about, it's the undead."

"Yeah, but I'm just getting tired of dating the undead," LaSala replied, then added, "No offence, Chekov."

"Madeleine is not undead," the navigator insisted before he realized how ridiculous that was going to sound.

"Can you prove it?" Dolin asked eagerly. "Have you seen her in sunlight?"

"There isn't any sunlight on this side of the planet," LaSala replied before Chekov could decline to. "But that doesn't necessarily prove anything."

"Yeah, avoiding being seen in direct light could just be part of her whole Blanche DuBois scenario..."

Chekov was sure if he knew what Dolin was talking about, he would have a very good excuse to be offended.

"Have you ever seen her in a mirror?" LaSala asked suddenly.

"Yes," the navigator replied, forgetting momentarily that he wasn't playing their game.

"Oh." Both of his companions seemed disappointed.

"She can't be the vampire," LaSala decided, after taking a thoughtful sip of his drink. "She would have gotten him by now... Or worse, one of us."

"She wouldn't necessarily kill him, you know," Dolin pointed out. "She might just make him into a minion. A good vampire always has a minion or two."

"Minion?" LaSala repeated.

"A mindless slave devoted to carrying out her evil will," his companion explained.

Both of them simultaneously turned and looked at the navigator as if examining him for signs of mindless slavery.

Chekov frowned at them mightily.

"Or not," Dolin relented.

"I'm starving," LaSala decided. "Chekov, are you going to eat with us, or are you and she going somewhere?"

It suddenly struck the navigator that he and Madeleine never went anywhere together. He'd never seen her eat anything. 

"I assume that we will...." Chekov suddenly stopped. Madeleine was here. He felt it as certainly as he would have sensed sunlight breaking through the city's perpetual gloom.

He turned to see her standing in the doorway of the cafe not to confirm his precognition but for the pleasure of looking at her. When she smiled and held out her hand, he rose from the table without giving his fellow officers so much as a backwards glance.

His abandoned companions watched them greet each other. Only their fingertips connected lightly, but the gesture crackled with the force of plasma bolts dancing in the heart of a supernova. 

Dolin and LaSala looked at each other.

"Minion," they concluded in unison before turning back to their drinks.

****

_She found me roots of relish sweet,_  
_And honey wild, and manna dew,_  
_And sure in language strange she said-"I love thee true._ "

"Do you still want to go out?" Madeleine smiled as she rose up onto her elbows.

Chekov's satisfied sigh turned into a laugh half-way through. "No," he said, putting his hands on the slender hips that rested so nicely atop his. "I think I'll stay where I am."

"Whatever you want," she said, lowering her lips to his once more, "my dear, sweet, darling boy."

It was hard to believe this was the same woman he'd been with yesterday. She'd been pale, fragile, and so exhausted she could barely lift an eyelid. Today she was vibrant, inexhaustible, indefatigable, and... wonderful.

Madeleine laughed as he sighed again. "Lazy," she scolded, getting up. "Perhaps we should go dancing. Just to keep you awake." 

"I'm awake," he assured her, stretching luxuriously.

"I feel like dancing." She picked up the paisley robe. Instead of putting it on, she playfully put its sleeves around her neck in a mock embrace. The ensign smiled as she twirled with the robe to an imaginary orchestra. "You were always a wonderful dancer," she said, stretching the robe's arms out and waltzing with it.

Chekov rolled his eyes silently. He'd found the most perfect woman in the galaxy. Perfect, except for the slight flaw of being completely delusional, that is...

As if she caught the thought, Madeleine turned to him. "No? Then what do you want to do?" She let the robe drop and put one knee on the mattress. "I'll do anything you want," she promised. "Anything for you, my precious loving soul."

He held his arms out for her and smiled as she melted into them. However, he knew as he held her tightly against his chest that there was something more he wanted from Madeleine. Unfortunately, it was the only thing he didn't feel comfortable asking for.

Abruptly she rolled off him. "The truth," she sighed to the ceiling. "You never change. All you ever want is the truth."

He shook his head in amazement. "Are you telepathic?"

"Sometimes, a little," she admitted. "With you it isn't really necessary, though. After having known you for so long..."

"We met a few days ago, Madeleine," Chekov reminded her firmly.

She looked at him seriously. "Do you really want to hear the truth?"

A thrill of fear ran through the ensign.

"You are an alien," he began for her, ignoring his premonition. "Your ship crash-landed on the planet Earth..."

"A very long time ago," she hedged, as if to protect his feelings. 

"You... were a humanoid race?" he asked, trying not to sound hopeful.

Madeleine sighed and sat up. She reached for her tortoise shell brush and began to comb through her long hair. "We have the ability to metamorphosize... to adapt to our surroundings. I have been humanoid... Oh, how to put it gently? Since a little before the dawn of what your people call 'Western Civilization'."

Chekov swallowed. Over two thousand years old. What was he doing in bed with a two thousand plus year old woman who wasn't even a real human? "And you confuse me with other humans you have known?"

"No." She touched his face tenderly. "Not you. True, most humans mean little to me, but not you. On your Earth, nothing is wasted. Energy is never truly lost, not even the energy that makes up what you call the soul. It re-coalesces. It is reborn."

She paused and watched him as if gauging his reaction.

Chekov remained silent, keeping a tight lid on any reaction. This, he knew now, was why he'd never pressed her for the truth. He'd somehow known what she was going to say. He knew now that it was far easier to believe she was delusional than it was to hear her speak words that validated the odd feelings and thoughts he'd been having since he met her.

"You are like Grigor," she explained, gently brushing his hair back, "because you are Grigor... and Timon ...and Thedore ... and Vaslav ..."

"You're a believer in reincarnation," he said, as if dismissing the notion.

She smiled. "Yes, like you are a believer in the laws of physics or the principles of astronavigation. I've seen the way things work in the universe."

He opened his mouth to state the logical, pragmatic objections he would have voiced to anyone else, but they wouldn't leave his lips. 

"Ridiculous," he protested, more against his own weakness than her proposition.

"Come," she said, putting her fingers to his temples in a way that suddenly reminded him of a Vulcan mind meld, "why be stubborn? Open your mind to the echoes of the past."

As if in response to her words and her touch, his mind filled with images... hundreds of images. Familiar, but unfamiliar. Colliding faces and voices. Her face. Her voice.

It was too much. He tried to push her hands away. "I... I ... don't understand..." he gasped from between clenched teeth, refusing to abandon himself to the cacophony in his mind.

The pressure at his temples eased. The onslaught of images dulled.  
"It doesn't matter," she soothed, then carefully kissed each of the points where her fingers had pressed. "We are here together now. That you understand, yes?"

Chekov felt weak, drained of resolve. "Yes, but.." he heard himself answering.

"No," she hushed him. "The past is dead. You are right to forget." 

The ensign didn't move as she turned to blow out the candle beside the bed. He didn't feel he could move. For the first time, he felt frightened of Madeleine. As she turned back to him, he saw her as a fly might view the approaching spider -- dark, beautiful, and deadly.

"There is only Now," she whispered. "Now and forever."

Even in the darkness, he could see her pale features perfectly. They almost seemed to glow.

"Open your heart to me, my love," she demanded, lowering her parted lips to his throat. "Give me your soul." 

****

"What about her teeth?" LaSala asked earnestly, leaning forward against the row of seats in front of him.

Chekov turned and gave him a narrow look. It was hardly an appropriate time for joking. They along with a dozen other brave souls remaining in Miratha had been called into police headquarters for a briefing with Mr. Spock -- probably to announce the death of another victim of the serial killer and probably to explain why their remaining shore leave was being cancelled. "What about her teeth?"

"You haven't... like... noticed anything about them, have you?" LaSala pressed seriously.

Chekov crossed his arms and turned his attention back to the front of the room. "Other than the long, pointed fangs? No."

"If I may have your attention..." Spock tapped the lectern in front of him.

From his seat in the back row beside LaSala, Dolins sighed. "Here we go. I regret to inform you..."

"As some of you may have already surmised," the Science Officer began, with a stern glance towards the back of the room, "another serviceman has been attacked and murdered. The body of a petty officer from the mining ship _Torvald_ was discovered behind Shuttle Station 12 a few hours ago..."

Chekov closed his eyes and shook his head. Station 12 was downtown, only a few miles from the center of the safety perimeter that had been set for off duty personnel.

"I therefore regret to inform you that Miratha has been declared off limits for _Enterprise_ personnel," the Vulcan announced.

Chekov didn't join the chorus of groans that rose up from his shipmates. Yesterday, such news would have driven him wild with despair, but after last night... The ensign shook his head again. He wasn't really sure what had happened last night. Perhaps he had been foolish. All Madeleine's wild talk about past lives... All LaSala and Dolins' silly jokes about vampires.... 

'Foolishness,' he scolded himself.

But last night, it hadn't seemed foolish. Last night, when Madeleine's teeth had pressed against his throat, he'd known he was in mortal danger and had fought her off... or tried to. He didn't have the strength. Last night, she had been incredibly strong... Strong enough to rip the throat out of a big, well-trained man like Ryan Siskow.

Chekov frowned. That couldn't be true. He wasn't going to start believing stupid things like that. But he did know that last night Madeleine's inhuman strength had frightened him. She had been on the verge of doing something -- something that Chekov still could not put a name to, but which made him tremble to remember. He also realized that for some reason she had let him go. She even pretended to be offended and to throw him out so it wouldn't look like he was running away.

'But why?' he asked himself for the millionth time.

"But why, Mr. Spock?" someone on the front row was asking. "Why is this investigation taking so long? I don't understand. From the accounts I've read, there has to be tons of forensic evidence. Why don't the local authorities just pick up the killer? Or are they so inept they can't even run a simple DNA match?"

The Science Officer folded his hands behind his back. "There are certain facts complicating the investigation that the city's security force have chosen not to reveal to the public."

LaSala raised his hand. "Such as the fact that the killer is a vampire?"

The Vulcan waited for the laughter this question provoked to die down. "Fanciful speculation of that sort, Mr. LaSala, is exactly the sort of public reaction Minratha's officials are striving to avoid."

"There's no truth to that sort of talk then?" Krissie Yakamoto asked nervously from her place in the second row. "I heard that not even the _Enterprise's_ biocomputers were able to get a reading off the DNA samples the police sent."

Spock held up a hand as if to ward off the rumor. "It is true that samples were sent to the ship and that we could not obtain a conclusive reading."

"But that's impossible, sir," the fellow from the first row -- a science officer from the looks of his uniform -- put in. "Any known humanoid lifeform will leave enough...." The young man stopped mid-sentence as he and the rest of the room realized the implications of what he was saying.

"So the killer is not a member of a known humanoid race," Dolins said, voicing the general conclusion.

Spock did not confirm or deny this. "The sample was too badly deteriorated to obtain a conclusive reading."

To the occupants of the room who had not failed their basic xenobiology course, this was further confirmation of the killer's alien origin. The samples sent to the ship had to be only a few hours old at most. No known lifeform had DNA that lost all cohesiveness that quickly.

"Sir," someone else on the front row chimed in, "according to the locals, there's someone who is always seen in the vicinity of the murders. She's supposed to be a woman with red hair, about forty years old..."

"...with a funny accent and a taste for little Russian teddy bears?" Dolins muttered just loudly enough to be audible to the occupant of the seat in front of him.

The yeoman on the front row was rummaging through her shopping satchel. "The people I'm staying with even gave me a picture so I'd know to avoid her..."

The Vulcan ignored the sheet of paper held out to him. "I did not call this meeting to review speculation concerning this case. I am merely here to inform you that as of eleven hundred hours this morning, planetary time, this city is off limits for all off duty _Enterprise_ personnel."

A weak feeling of dread came over Chekov as Kristine Yakamoto intercepted the drawing on its way back to the yeoman's satchel.

"That gives you approximately two point seven five hours to gather your belongings, conclude any business, and arrange transport elsewhere," Spock was continuing.

"Oh, shit," LaSala whispered as Yakamoto glanced over her shoulder at Chekov. "Krissie's going to rat us out."

"She wouldn't," Dolins replied.

Despite his confidence, the word, "Dismissed" barely had enough time to leave the Science Officer's lips before their former drinking companion made a beeline for the Vulcan.

"That little b-witch," LaSala said, rising. "Do you think we still have time to make a run for it?"

At that moment the three of them were caught in a laser beam glance from their superior.

"Nope," Dolins replied, sadly sinking back into his seat.

Chekov remained motionless as he watched the Science Officer approach. After what had happened to him last night, the prospect of being caught stretching regulations seemed distinctly anti-climactic.

"Be cool," Dolins warned his companions. 

"Gentlemen." Spock handed Chekov a folded piece of paper. "Ensign Yakamoto informs me you may have some knowledge of this woman."

It was a drawing, not a photograph, but was still recognizable -- paler and more sharp-featured under streetlights than in the candlelight of her bedroom, but undeniably Madeleine.

"Other than the fact Chekov's sleeping with her?" LaSala blurted out.

His partner winced. "That's not exactly what I meant by playing it cool, Toddy."

"Sorry," LaSala replied abashedly.

Chekov didn't have to look up to know exactly the angle to which the Science Officer's eyebrows were lifted.

"Gentleman," the Vulcan said to Dolins and LaSala."If you will excuse us for a moment?"

Chekov could actually feel a breeze in the wake of his co-conspirators’ rush to abandon him. 

Spock sat down beside him. "Mr. Chekov, do you know this woman?"

"Yes, sir," he answered, his eyes still fixed on the harshly drawn representation.

"And your relationship to her is.... intimate?"

Chekov carefully re-folded the paper and handed it to the Vulcan. "It was."

"Hmm." The Vulcan nodded slowly as he accepted it. "Interesting."

That comment, to Chekov, seemed like the perfect full stop to put on his encounter with Madeleine. That was what would happen in an ideal universe -- He would take the experience, label it "interesting" in that same calm tone of voice, and file it away forever. Of course, that wasn't what was going to happen now....

"Please come with me." The Science Officer tapped the ensign's shoulder as he rose. "I think the captain will want to speak with you."

"Yes, sir." The reflexive tightening in his gut told Chekov that getting caught might be about to get much, much less anti-climactic.

****

"What the hell were you thinking?"

Chekov opened his mouth for the fortieth time, knowing he probably wasn't going to get a chance to answer this time either.

He was right. 

"You weren't thinking," Kirk answered for him. "That's what happened. You weren't thinking."

To say that the captain had not been pleased to learn of the ensign's relationship with Madeleine was something of an understatement. In fact, Chekov couldn't recall ever seeing Kirk this angry. Of course, it was very difficult to make meaningful comparisons at present. It was difficult to think about anything at the moment other than the percussive sound of the soles of his captain's boots landing against the hard floor of the small interrogation room the police had loaned the Federation officers assisting them with the murder investigation. 

The ensign didn't dare move his eyes to confirm, but he could tell from the sound that Kirk had paused in his pacing at the far right end of his pattern and had turned to glare at Chekov.

"The biggest serial killer in this side of the galaxy," the captain muttered almost to himself. "And where do I find the chief suspect? In bed with my navigator." 

Chekov tensed as the sound of bootsteps once more turned in his direction -- although he'd already been standing at attention so long and so stiffly that his back and neck muscles felt as like they were made of piano wire.

"Just what the hell were you doing with that woman?" Kirk demanded, coming to within inches of the ensign's right ear. "Answer me."

Chekov closed his mouth and didn't even try to reply to that one.

This seemed further infuriate the captain. "I asked you a question, Mister."

Chekov blinked at his commanding officer, unable to believe this query wasn't rhetorical.

"I said, what the hell were you doing with that woman, Ensign?" Kirk repeated adamantly.

"I..." Chekov tried to begin, but the literal truth didn't seem like an appropriate response. He looked uncomfortably over at Spock.

"Captain, I think we've already established that Mr. Chekov was engaging in a sexual liaison with..." the Science Officer began helpfully.

"Spock..." Kirk interrupted dangerously.

"It is puzzling, though," the Vulcan continued, un-intimidated.

"What is?"

"If this woman is the murder we are seeking, or an accomplice of that murder, then it would be logical to assume that she intended to kill Mr. Chekov herself or select him as victim for someone else."

"Yes," Kirk replied, turning back to the ensign and sounding as if he didn't think murdering the ensign was a particularly bad idea.

"Their initial encounter follows a pattern that has been reported for the selection of victims," Spock said. "However, Mr. Chekov met with this woman a number of times -- and in seclusion. Yet no attempt was made on his life."

"Not yet," Kirk added cynically.

"Typically the murder occurs after the first encounter," Spock pointed out. "There have been a few incidents where the murder occurred during a second encounter -- but only when the first was interrupted. Ensign Chekov, in contrast, met with this woman multiple times over a period of several days without an attempt being made on his life..."

"Spock," Kirk interrupted impatiently. "Maybe she just wanted to sleep with him. She doesn't have to kill everyone she meets."

"Yes, sir," the Vulcan agreed. "That is a possibility of which we must not lose sight. We also need to consider the following: One -- This woman may not be involved with the murders at all. And two -- If she is connected to the murders, she may have established a unique relationship with Ensign Chekov that can be exploited to the advantage of our investigation."

The other two occupants of the room turned to stare at the Science Officer as they took a moment to assess what he was suggesting. 

Chekov was amazed to find how being chewed out and put on report by his captain -- a reality which had seemed almost unimaginably unpleasant a few seconds ago -- suddenly faded to mild insignificance next to the possibility of being used as a tool against Madeleine. "Sir," he began boldly. "Mr. Spock told us that the killer has a unique DNA structure."

It was the Vulcan's turn to be on the receiving end of his captain's glare. 

"I confirmed rumors that the _Enterprise_ had done DNA testing for the local authorities," Spock admitted. "And that the results had been inconclusive. Anything else is speculation."

"Madeleine has been interviewed by the local authorities," Chekov continued. "There will be records of..."

"No, Ensign. There's not," Spock informed him. "She refused to submit to any testing -- which, unfortunately, is her prerogative under local law."

"We barely have fingerprints on record for her," Kirk complained.

Chekov frowned. "She's not native to this planet. Surely her travel documentation includes..."

"The woman you know as Madeleine arrived on this planet under unusual circumstances..." Spock began.

"Yes, she arrived here during the Gorsolon Uprising," Kirk took up the tale, a peculiar glint coming into his eyes. "You are familiar with recent Federation history, aren't you, Ensign?"

"Yes, sir," Chekov replied automatically. "As a result of economic pressures on the colony worlds of..."

"Dates," Kirk interrupted. "Do you remember the dates, Ensign?"

"Yes, sir. The initial skirmish occurred on stardate..."

"Which was long ago?" Kirk asked pointedly.

Chekov did a quick calculation. "Approximately seventy-five years ago."

"Seventy-three point four-seven," Spock corrected automatically.

"Which means," Kirk said, finally deciding to cut to the chase, "that your lady love is a little older than you – to say the least."

Chekov straightened back into his former position. "Yes, sir," he replied, striving for expressionlessness.

And apparently failing miserably. "I think Mr. Chekov is already aware of that," Spock deduced.

"I think he is too," Kirk agreed. "How old is Madeleine, Chekov?"

"I don't know, sir."

"What has she told you?"

Chekov closed his eyes and weighed his options. On one hand there was the unbelievable and possibly damaging truth, on the other was his obligations as an officer. "It doesn't make any sense," he protested weakly.

"Chekov," Kirk warned.

"She told me she was... several... hundreds of years old." The ensign looked at his feet so he could miss his superiors' reactions. "She spoke of having visited Earth... of having been marooned there for several centuries. She said I reminded her of a lover she had who died during the Second World War. She has artifacts in her apartment that date from that time and much earlier..."

Even Spock looked surprised.

"And you didn't find that unusual?" Kirk asked incredulously.

"Yes, sir. I found it quite unusual."

"But not unusual enough to report?"

"No, sir." Chekov knew there was some reason why he'd not done that, but it took him a minute to think of it --- and since Kirk was allowing him a generous amount of time to contemplate his own idiocy, he found he had that minute. "I did not truly believe her."

Kirk looked somewhat disappointed that the ensign had been able to think of an acceptable response. "Are you still in contact with this woman?"

"No, sir. We... had a disagreement."

"It may be necessary for you to patch things up with her... At least temporarily."

"Captain," Spock objected when the ensign could not, "Mr. Chekov would be putting himself at great danger..."

"To save the lives of how many, Spock?" Kirk retorted grimly. "He can get close to her -- Close enough to get the readings we need to confirm that she's the one we're looking for."

"To do so would be deliberately ignoring due process under local legal precedents," the Vulcan pointed out. 

"Local legal precedent has allowed nearly two dozen people to be brutally murdered by this thing," the captain countered. "We'll do everything possible to minimize the risk to Chekov. He'll be monitored. We'll use transponders to pull him out at the first sign of danger. But I've got to have those readings. If my suspicions are wrong and she's not our killer, she need never know. If she finds out, I'll apologize to her myself. But if the readings do check out, and she's our killer, I'll need you there, Chekov -- there to stop her."

'Kill her,' Chekov translated. 'He means for me to kill Madeleine.'

"Sir," he said aloud. "I don't know if I can..."

"You'll have back up," Kirk assured him dismissively.

"Sir, she's not capable of such things..."

"That's what we mean to determine, Ensign," Spock informed him neutrally.

Chekov swallowed. "Sir, I couldn't..."

Kirk turned and for the first time in the interview gave him the look one would give a fellow being in trouble rather than an erring subordinate. "Chekov, if she's what we think she is, you've got to stop thinking of her as a woman you have cared for, but as a murdering monster who puts the life of every human being on this planet at danger. If you don't stop her, you condemn countless innocent men, women, and children on this planet to death."

The captain paused to watch his statement sink in. "If she is the one responsible for these murders, she's not a woman. She's an alien who feeds on human blood. Human blood, Ensign. Your blood. Mine. Remember that you are a human, Chekov -- a bit of flesh and bone afloat in an endless universe and that your highest duty will always be to the rest of humanity. That's how you'll be able to do this. Remember who you are and where your duty lies. Do you understand me? 

"Yes, sir," Chekov replied, but he could help asking, "Isn't that almost the same thing you said to Lt. Palamas on Pollux Four?"

Kirk frowned. "You were listening?

The ensign shrugged apologetically. "You weren't talking very quietly and we were only a few feet away..."

It took the captain a moment to recover his aplomb. "Well, you remember how that turned out, don't you?"

"Yes, sir," Chekov replied like a good Star Fleet officer. "Thanks to her efforts Apollo was distracted and we were able to defeat him." The pragmatist in him forced him to add, "And Lt. Palamas subsequently suffered a nervous collapse as a result of the guilt she felt in having contributed to the death of the man she loved and the father of her child."

The captain gave him a narrow look. "Well, that's not going to happen to you, is it?"

"Become pregnant?"

"No," Kirk replied, his tone getting brittle. "You're not likely to have a nervous breakdown because of this, are you?"

"I don't know, sir," Chekov replied honestly. "I've never betrayed someone I loved for the greater good of humanity before."

Neither Kirk nor Spock seemed to have an immediate answer for this. Perhaps they were too shocked that he'd had the audacity to say such a thing. Chekov was a little shocked he'd said it himself.

The ensign sighed resignedly. "Exactly what do you want me to do, sir?"

*****

"Of all the times to get stood up..." Lt. Sherman grumbled as she passed.

Chekov grimaced. The security escort wasn't supposed to communicate with him at all, but after an hour and a half of waiting, it was growing apparent the Madeleine wasn't going to keep their appointment in the Zaldchi Hotel's bar. The ensign sighed and rose from his table.

"I'll be back in a moment," he said quietly as he passed Sherman at the bar.

The security guard made a negative noise and caught his arm.

The ensign took a step backwards and pointed to towards the Men's Room sign with his eyes.

"Again?" Sherman heaved a long-suffering sigh. "You gotta stop drinking."

"If you were in my situation," he assured her, "you would drink."

Actually, he hadn't drunk that much. He just had to get out of the bar for a moment. The feeling of being watched was beginning to drive him insane. In addition to the five security guards disguised as bar patrons, the ensign could sense another presence following his every move. Madeleine was near and aware of what he was doing, what he was thinking...

Chekov took a hand towel from the dispenser near the sink and used it to wash his face. The tension of waiting had made him as tired and anxious in an hour as a week of patrolling the Neutral Zone could have done. A trick of the light made him look past his own reflection in the mirror to the elegantly wood-paneled wall behind him. Some perversity of his imagination organized the random pattern of the wood grain into the outline of a woman's face.

And then it became a real woman's face.

Chekov gasped and whirled around. Madeleine stood before him wearing a dress of the same mahogany shade as the paneling.

She smiled and put her finger to his lips. Inexplicably, her finger became insubstantial and passed through his jaw. He could feel an odd tingling sensation that traced its path to the miniature transmitter Security had attached to one of his back teeth. Madeleine's hand emerged looking once more quite solid as she crushed the tiny device between two fingers as one might an insect.

"It's a good thing I can read your thoughts," she said as she repeated the incredible process to remove the transponders implanted in his forearms. "It makes it unnecessary for us to discuss why you are here. I understand, of course. But I'm afraid an explanation would still hurt my feelings."

The fear-paralyzed muscles of Chekov's jaw relaxed enough for him to ask, "What do you intend to do with me now?"

"Something foolish," she replied with a tender smile. "I tried to drive you away and put you from my mind, but, as your poets say, the flesh is weak..." 

Her grip on him was anything but weak, however. She stepped backwards, pulling him gently, but irresistibly towards the wall from which she had emerged. Her dress shimmered and became more and more like the color of the wood until it began to blend into the paneling.

"What are you doing?" he demanded in horror as her hair and skin also began to turn into mahogany.

"Taking you with me," she said, enfolding him in wooden arms.

It was as if the paneling encased him. He was like a fly in amber, surrounded on all sides by a rigid substance that would not let him move enough even to breathe.

"Chekov!"

The ensign was amazed he could still hear the muffled crash of the security guards as they burst into the room behind him.

"Damn!" he could hear Lt. Sherman swear over the sound of a communicator activating. "Captain, she... or it got him."

"How?"

"I don't know, sir. I let him go to the bathroom and she must have been waiting for him. All the tracking devices are here on the floor, crushed."

Chekov could feel the heat of someone's hand flat against the imprisoning material behind him. He tried desperately to make a noise or movement that would alert that person to his presence, but he was being held too tightly for even air to escape. His lungs felt near to bursting.

"....They can't have gotten far," his captain's voice was saying.

"Yes, sir." The sound of a communicator closing, the door opening and footsteps. "Johnson, come on."

"Yes, Lieutenant," The warmth of the hand was removed. "My tricorder settings are off," the voice complained as it – and Chekov's consciousness -- began to fade. "For a minute it was giving me readings like there was someone inside that wall...."  


****

_And there she lulled me asleep,_  
_And there I dream'd--Ah! woe betide!_  
_The latest dream I ever dream'd_  
_On the cold hill's side._

 

Chekov awoke to find himself surrounded in satin. His arms were crossed over his chest and he was lying in some sort of strange bed. The sides of the bed were covered in elaborately quilted and flounced white satin. The bed had an odd half-canopy that was also covered in puffs and tucks of satin.

When the ensign's brain finally gathered enough information to recognize this familiar structure that he had never viewed from quite this angle, he gasped in horror.

He was lying in a half-open coffin.

"Oh, you're awake," a woman's voice said.

Something had an iron grip on his ankles underneath the closed portion of the coffin. He could sit up, but he could not get out.

Madeleine was standing across the room working with an unfamiliar piece of equipment. "Shhhh," she soothed, without looking up.

Looking around he could see they were in a small chamber of a tunnel or cave. The walls were earthen, but the floor was metallic. The chamber was lit by a dozen or so candles.

"Where are we?" Chekov asked, picking the question almost a random from the large supply of possible queries that occurred to him.

Madeleine looked up and smiled at him as if in appreciation for this. "This is one of my safe places. At one time, this was a maintenance passageway for servicing an underground transit tube. This particular line is no longer used, though."

Reaching under the coffin lid, Chekov could feel thick metallic bands encasing his ankles. From their complex surfaces, the bands seemed to be more than mere restraints.

"Are you going to kill me?" he asked, choosing another important question.

Madeleine smiled at him again. "No. Never."

"But you are..." It was difficult to know how to phrase such a question. "...You are the vampire, are you not?"

"Oh, my dear," she said affectionately, putting aside her work and crossing to him. 

He flinched away when she reached out to caress his face.

Unperturbed, she instead laid her cold hand over one of his that was gripping the closed half of the coffin lid. "As I have told you a thousand times, there are no such things as vampires. Vampires are a fiction -- a mythology to explain phenomena that the primitive inhabitants of Earth could not recognize or properly comprehend."

He met her gaze coldly. "Phenomenon such as a group of shape-shifting aliens who lived among them and fed on human blood?"

Madeleine's expression hardened and lost some of its customary patronizing affection.

"We are metamorphs," she confirmed. "Like humans have begun to do now, we launched expeditionary missions to explore our galaxy and beyond. Unlike humans, in order to investigate... in order to understand environments and species... we ingest them."

"You eat them?" he clarified accusingly.

"Yes," she replied defensively. "To my species, ingestion is a form of investigation that is no more strange, cruel, or unnatural than using your eyes or ears is to a human. Because we are metamorphs, we feel the need to understand objects and creatures on the cellular and genetic level. Ingestion makes this possible."

"So," Chekov said slowly, "you want me to believe these murders you have committed are all in the name of... science?"

"No." She sighed and turned away. "Unfortunately, no. After we crashed on your planet and began our... explorations, we found out too late that the nervous systems of some of the higher mammals contain substances that are very addictive for our species. Elephants or dolphins produce much the same substances. Unfortunately for those of us who made camp in the region that came to be known as Central Europe, humans were more plentiful."

"And so, you hunted them down like animals...."

She shrugged. "The hunger becomes unbearable... You couldn't possibly imagine. It's the nature of the addiction – which doesn't mean that we are incapable of respecting you as a species or even of loving you as individuals... You see, that's part of the disease. The more humans we ingest, the more human-like we become. This humanoid form is now natural to me. I maintain it without effort. I ceased to revert to my true state, even when hibernating, hundreds of years ago."

"And you've followed us into space to continue to prey upon us..."

"No. Not at all. We're attempting to return home. As your technology advances, we are able to repair and recover more of our own... to make further and further jumps towards our own galaxy as your circle of exploration expands. You see, we must return. We have to warn our kind. Humans are a dominant species of the section of the universe. If other explorers from our galaxy were to happen upon humans as we did, unaware of the dangers of ingesting them... Imagine the sort of chaos that would be caused by the arrival of even a small fleet of colony ships..."

"...Of vampires?"

"Of aliens vulnerable to exposure to substances present in human physiology," she corrected firmly. "We are essentially a benevolent species. But because of this tragic physical vulnerability, we who were stranded on your planet have become predators and parasites abhorrent to your kind. We did not wish this. We do not wish it to happen again."

"And what will you do with me?" he said, deciding to finally voice the question that had been at the top of his list for a long time. "Are you going to turn me into a vampire as well?"

She gave a small laugh and retrieved the alien workpad she'd been using earlier. "No. That is another fiction your people have created about us. We can't change humans into our kind. The myth probably grew up because of that fact that a metamorph is capable of very accurately imitating the form of a being whose fluids it has ingested. Some of my kind doubtlessly used the form of their recent victims to either flee or attract new victims and created the impression that those victims had risen from the dead."

"You wish me to believe that you've never done such a thing?"

"I've done what I had to do to survive," she replied. "What I wish you to understand and believe is that none of it has ever cheapened or tainted my love for you."

"Your love for me?" Chekov repeated. "And this love includes locking me in a coffin?"

"It's not a coffin," she said, manipulating the controls of the device she was holding. "It's a hibernation chamber. I am attempting to adjust the controls to accommodate the differences in your physiological makeup..."

"Hibernation? You're going to put me to sleep?"

"Yes. The situation here had deteriorated to the point of unmanageability for both of us."

"When do you intend to wake me?"

"It usually takes some time for incidents like the ones that have occurred here to fade from memory," she replied evasively.

"How many years are you setting the controls for?" 

"You really don't need to worry about...." Madeleine's voice was interrupted by the familiar sound of transporter materialization.

"He may not need to worry," Captain Kirk said, shimmering into existence with phaser drawn and surrounded by a phalanx of security guards, "but you do."

"I would be most interested to examine that device," Mr. Spock said, pointing to the alien workpad in Madeleine's hands.

"As if I could prevent you," she sighed, relinquishing it as the security guards stepped forward to take custody of her.

"Chekov, are you all right?" Kirk asked as a pair of redshirts moved to free the ensign from his ghoulish prison.

"I think so, sir," the ensign answered, as the lid on the lower half of the coffin was lifted. The restraints around his ankles turned out to look more like medical scanners than leg irons.

"The type of personal transporter you used is unfamiliar to us," the captain said, still holding his phaser levelled at Madeleine despite the fact her hands were now secured in energy bands. "But it still left a power signature that we were able to trace."

Madeleine sighed. "Oh, you humans keep getting smarter every day."

"Captain," one of the guards attempting to free Chekov reported, "we can't get these off."

Kirk turned to Madeleine and gestured towards the coffin with his phaser.

She only smiled and shrugged. "Why should I? When you're so obviously so intelligent?"

"If I may, Captain," Spock said, stepping forward with the control board. "I think that device is activated from here."

"Be careful, Mr. Spock," Chekov pleaded. "This is a hibernation chamber. She was preparing to put me into a deep sleep."

"Yes." Spock nodded as his fingers played over the controls. "Parts of this device are derived from technologies familiar to me. It would seem this lady intended for you to remain here for quite some time -- on the order of two hundred years, if I'm interpreting the display correctly."

"Why him?" Kirk demanded, turning back to Madeleine. "Why Chekov? Does he know something about you -- Accidentally found something out that you thought could be damaging?"

She uttered a low chuckling laugh like a villainess from a horror movie. "Don't you know your own mythology, Captain? Every good vampire needs a loyal crypt keeper to see she isn't disturbed between the times to hunt and feed."

Chekov was shocked by the coldness of her tone and expression.

"I had to dispose of my last one a few years ago," she continued boldly, as if boasting of the fact. "He was too old to have survived another one of my long hibernations anyway. And I need an assistant the most after a hibernation... You see, I'm weak then and need to feed more frequently."

Chekov shook his head as the Science Officer continued to puzzle over the control mechanism. "I would have never helped you to kill."

"Of course you would have, my darling," she said, her smile overly sharp and bright. "Imagine the helpless anachronism you would be upon waking two hundred years into the future. You would be alone and quite dependent on me."

"But I would not be a party to murder."

"Are you sure?" she asked cruelly. "You've already been surprised by the things you've done to please me." She turned away from ensign's shocked expression to face the captain. "You really should excuse this little one if you've been hurt by any displays of disloyalty on his part since he arrived here. I've cast quite a glamour on him."

"A glamour?" Kirk repeated.

"Surely you've heard about the way vampires are able to lure their victims," she replied. "A glamour is a combination of many things -- part telepathic manipulation, part hypnosis, part pure flattery." She laughed at the way Chekov reddened at the last. "I've had more success inspiring the necessarily loyalty in my love-lorn assistants as opposed to those who were merely fear-crazed."

"Madeleine," the ensign protested broken-heartedly, as Spock bent over the coffin to check a setting on the device around his ankles.

"Look, Captain," she said, nodding towards him. "See how he struggles not to believe the truth even when he hears if from my own lips. Give me a moment alone with him and I could quickly have him believing again that everything I've just told you was a lie."

"That won't be necessary," Kirk said, as Spock finally found the control to release the ensign from his tomb.

"Pity," she said. "He had all the marks of an excellent minion. And if worse came to worse, he'd make a lovely snack." She made a hideous smacking noise with her lips.

Amidst his horror and revulsion, Chekov noticed for the first time how very large Madeleine's teeth were... No, not _were_... were _growing_. She was changing -- metamorphosing before their eyes.

"Captain!" he shouted in warning.

The time it took to speak made the warning too late. The woman's body had stretched into the form of a creature over nine feet tall. The face the ensign had kissed lengthened into the fanged visage of a white-skinned alien predator. Long, ropy arms slipped easily out of the bonds that had held Madeleine's delicate wrists. The creature opened a hideous double set of extending jaws and reached for the nearest humanoids.

Without pausing long enough to fully decide to do so, Chekov grabbed a phaser from the shock-numbed fingers of the guard closest to the coffin and fired.

From across the room, other phasers were being fired. The blasts converged, momentarily bathing the creature in an unholy red glow. It shrieked as it lost cohesion and melted into a shimmering mass of energy. The walls reverberated with its agony as the seething mass expanded and contracted spasmodically. With one final inhuman cry, it seemed to explode in a blinding flash.

The chamber was plunged into complete darkness. The candles must have been extinguished by the blast.

Almost immediately, spots of light began to appear as the security guards activated their belt lights. Soon there was enough illumination to reveal that all members of the _Enterprise_ team were present and unharmed.

Madeleine -- or whatever she had really been -- was gone.

*****

"Package from home?" Sulu asked brightly as he took a seat opposite his helm partner in the Rec Room.

The navigator was contemplating the contents of a small metallic box sitting on the table before him. "Not quite," he answered reluctantly. "It's from Nindos III. They're trying to settle Madeleine's estate."

Sulu made a polite "oh" with his lips and mentally cursed whoever had sent the package. Several weeks had passed since the incidents at Miratha and it seemed that his friend had only just begun to show signs of recovering from the shock of his unfortunate stay in that port.

Chekov lifted up the sleeve of a paisley-colored garment.  
"Most of her belongings were sold," he said, absently running his thumb against the silken material. "The proceeds were given to the families of her victims..."

"Chekov," Sulu began. "You can't blame yourself. From what you've told me, she was playing some heavy duty mind games with you. Spock was there and he doesn't think you're to blame. The captain was there and he doesn't think you're to blame. You shouldn't think you're to blame. Nothing that happened was your fault."

The Russian shook his head. "You warned me about her. I should have listened."

"No, I told you she was a prostitute -- not a vampire," the lieutenant replied lightly, trying to make it a joke. "So I was wrong too."

"Not as wrong as I was."

Since this was fairly inarguable, Sulu cast about for an appropriate segue into another topic. Chekov had taken the black glass paperweight out of the box. "There's something stuck to the bottom of that."

Chekov pulled a scrap of paper from the underside of the glass piece. "It says 'goodbye.'" he reported slowly.

For some reason, this sent chills up Sulu's spine. "Who do you think wrote that?"

Chekov didn't answer, but his failure to respond spoke volumes.

"You think Madeleine wrote that? But she couldn't have. She's dead. You saw her die." Sulu's shock made him forget to be thoughtfully euphemistic.

The ensign carefully placed the paperweight back into the box. "I don't know what I saw."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"She was a metamorph. She turned into a wall so convincingly that it couldn't be detected by a tricorder. Why then did she, in the midst of an armed guard, turn into a creature so threatening and revolting that she had to have known we would fire upon it immediately?"

"Maybe she panicked and reverted to her true form," Sulu suggested as gently as he could.

Chekov shook his head. "She told me that it was no longer instinctive for her to revert to her true form. And she did not seem panicked. She seemed as though she was playing a scene – like an actress in a melodrama. She spoke as I had never heard her speak. She called herself and her kind vampires. She referred to myths that she'd dismissed as fictions a few moments before. It was as if she was trying purposefully to frighten and anger us, trying to ensure that we would fire -- that even I would fire without hesitation."

The lieutenant definitely did not like the direction this train of thought was heading.

"I've never seen organic matter explode in that manner as a result of phaser blast," Chekov continued doggedly. "Perhaps it was a just a diversion. The flash of light then complete darkness gave her time and opportunity to transform into anything in the room."

Sulu knew where the shiver that traveled down his backbone came from. The thought of a shape-shifting vampire lurking in Miratha's perpetual twilight was not a pleasant one despite the fact they were heading away from that place at warp speed. "The area was searched," he reminded the navigator and himself firmly. "The hibernation chamber was dismantled."

"She called it one of her 'safe places,'" Chekov said. "She lived on that planet for almost a hundred years. Who knows how many other chambers like it she had prepared?"

"Chekov," Sulu said once more to re-stabilize both his and his helm partner's grip on reality. "When Madeleine told the Captain what she did to you, she indicated that you might react this way -- might go on believing things about her even when the facts indicate otherwise..."

The ensign sighed heavily as he rose. "That is true as well," he agreed.

"Where are you going?"

"To storage," he replied, hefting the box. "I'd like to have this put somewhere I won't see it again for a long time."

Sulu smiled as Chekov headed towards the door. The ensign was still probably a long way from a full recovery from the emotional wounds that the creature Madeleine had inflicted on him, but this seemed like a step in the right direction. Looking back at the tabletop, the lieutenant noticed that the scrap of paper had fallen there. He picked it up and turned, but the navigator had already exited.

Curiosity wouldn't allow Sulu to crumple and discard the note without first taking a quick look.

The writing was old-fashioned. The slanting rounded letters ended in feminine looking curls.

" _Au revior, mon amour_ ," it read. The lieutenant knew enough French to translate, "Until we meet again, my love."

** **** END **** **

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [(Fanart) La Belle Dame](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17557991) by [Mylochka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mylochka/pseuds/Mylochka)




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